Mr Eric Lim is a Consultant Thoracic Surgeon at the Royal Brompton Hospital and Reader in Thoracic Surgery at the National Heart and Lung Institute of Imperial College London (Figure 1). He received his undergraduate medical education at the University of Sheffield Medical School. His specialist heart and lung surgical training was at Papworth Hospital in Cambridge and the Royal Brompton Hospital in London. He spent time in medical research in Cambridge where he was awarded a Doctorate of Medicine and in research methods London where he received his Masters of Science in Medical Statistics funded by a UK Medical Research Council Scholarship.

Mr Lim is a sub-specialist in Thoracic Surgery with specific expertise in lung and other chest cancers. His technical expertise is minimally invasive (keyhole) surgery for lung cancer, pleural effusion, pneumothorax and other chest cancers, as well as complex surgery for advanced lung cancer involving airway and blood vessel reconstruction (to save as much normal lung as possible).

He has an active interest in clinical and translational research. He is the Chief Investigator leading UK wide multicentre trials of surgery for mesothelioma (MARS 2) and VATS lobectomy (VIOLET). He is the head of the Biomedical Research Unit Cancer Consortia and leads a team of translational researchers focusing on blood based cancer diagnosis and predictive testing aspiring to shorten time to diagnosis and eliminate complications of conventional invasive tissue biopsy.

His research has led to over 90 peer review publications, he has authored two award winning textbooks (Medicine and Surgery, Churchill’s Pocketbook of Differential Diagnosis) and six book chapters. Mr Lim chaired the British Thoracic Society and Society for Cardiothoracic Surgery’s Guidelines on the Management of Lung Cancer in 2010, contributed to the European Society of Medical Oncology Early Stage Lung Cancer Guidelines in 2013 and European Neuroendocrine Tumours Management of Bronchopulmonary Carcinoids Guidelines in 2014.

He also the Chair of the UK Thoracic Surgery Research Collaborative and served as a Councillor of the European Society of Thoracic Surgeons, a member of the Steering Committee of the British Thoracic Oncology Group, an Associate Editor of Thorax and the Deputy Statistics Editor for the Journal of Thoracic and Cardiovascular Surgery.